I would love to take psychedelics. I'm sincere. But I'm frightened by the consequences that it may have on my ocd.

Do you still have ocd now?

@ginfeez Sure, my symptoms only went away while I was taking it but the experience also taught me what I need to do to get on top of it, it showed me the value of not ruminating, of choosing not to engage with worries, of taking time to process emotions, of not avoiding, of having a healthy lifestyle, of deliberately letting go of small concerns etc. It's not as good as being on it. And while I was taking it I didn't actually know I had OCD, I thought it was just PTSD/anxiety/depression. But it made my life a lot better, and since then I am able to choose to go into that headspace of a kind of wobbly freedom. I've experienced the alternative to living in OCD and I'm able to choose to live it without the microdosing if I dare. It's more difficult, it has to involve a lot of mindfulness practice in order to pull it off, but I can do it.

Here*

@Ocdaim Oops sorry!! I should of clarified that the study I saw was about the danger of LSD, not shrooms. I didn’t know about shrooms or did any research on that one! Just wanted to clear that up.

@Ocdaim I googled your claim last night and found absolutely no evidence for it whatsoever. Just a whole lot of evidence against an idea like this. Do you have any idea what a person would be like with HALF their normal levels of serotonin? And you think taking LSD once would do that to a person? Just please don't spread propaganda like this.

@Ocdaim LSD binds to serotonin (5-ht) receptors twice as efficiently as serotonin does, and that means that the serotonin stops playing a part in your neural chemistry during the drug trip as it's not being passed across the synapses, maybe that's what you read. But taking LSD does not change the levels of serotonin in your body or brain, it just makes your serotonin useless during the trip, and certainly doesn't permanently alter your serotonin levels or your 5-ht receptors' ability to actually uptake serotonin. It can't cause depression or imbalances of neurotransmitters. It's also completely non-addictive. Honestly there are enough harmful myths around which kept psychadelics from being studied whatsoever between the early 70s and the mid 2010s. That's 40 years of a black box because people believed scaremongering rumours put out by governments using drug prohibition laws to criminalise minorities. We don't need any more of that. We can move past that.

@Ocdaim Dw I saw articles on this too where they did studies on monkeys and rodents and humans to test seretonin long term. I think the 50% you are confusing with the 2 weeks after high doses of LSD. A brain scan showed it being extremely low 2 weeks after but 7 years later it replenished most, but it never came back to the full amount. But I have heard different things for microdosing nowadays and to each their own. Research is always changing of course but when you see an article, most people aren’t going to assume it’s false. It’s what I learned too in a health course back at uni. “by releasing large amounts of serotonin, MDMA causes the brain to become significantly depleted of this important neurotransmitter, contributing to the negative psychological aftereffects that people may experience for several days after taking MDMA. Research in rodents and primates has shown that moderate to high doses of MDMA, given twice daily for four days, damages nerve cells that contain serotonin. MDMA-exposed primates showed reduced numbers of serotonergic neurons 7 years later, indicating that some of MDMA’s effect on the brain can be long lasting. MDMA has additional effects on the serotonin system. For example, 1 to 2 weeks following binge-dosing with MDMA (three or four low doses in one day), rats showed decreased expression of the serotonin transporter, a protein that allows cells to take up and recycle released serotonin. these findings are consistent with studies in humans that have shown that some people who use MDMA regularly experience confusion, depression, anxiety paranoia, and impairment of memory and attention processes.”

@ginfeez MDMA is not LSD ?

@ginfeez LSD upregulates your 5-ht receptors to be more sensitive to serotonin AND the LSD molecules have a stronger affinity to those receptors than actual serotonin molecules have. During a trip you're not getting much serotonin, you're getting LSD passed along your serotonin receptors instead. "Although moderate LSD use temporarily reduces the relative levels of serotonin available, it does not have a long-term effect on serotonin levels. If abstinence is practiced, serotonin levels will return to normal within 1-2 weeks." Notice that your copypaste spoke of "MDMA", which is ecstasy, which is a completely different drug to LSD and does completely different things.